


stay in your lane!

by okaytlyn



Series: making waves [1]
Category: PRISTIN (Band), Pledis Girlz, Produce 101 (TV), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Swimming, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaytlyn/pseuds/okaytlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kang Yebin - regional 100m breaststroke junior record holder and headstrong girl that Needs No Man™ -  is definitely not in love with injured backstroke specialist Jeon Wonwoo, the guy so far in the closet and so gay for their team leader Kim Mingyu that it hurts.</p><p>Besides, rule number one of college swimming is to never date your teammates.<br/>(And of course, no one ever listens.)<br/>[pledisgirlz/seventeen uni swimming au!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay in your lane!

**Author's Note:**

> kang yebin (fierce, funny, short-haired rapper that danced with wonwoo in their call me maybe dance back in 2013), zhou jieqiong (pinky)(subvocal/ult visual) and jung eunwoo (main vocal af, also sang with vernon for his song Sickness) are under pledis girls. they're the funniest and the cutest - PLEASE STAN!!!
> 
> chapter titles are taken from a variation of my physics module titles lmao - if you can get the "deep" meaning behind the choice of titles i applaud you;;;

_**Equilibrium** **,** in physics, the condition of a system when neither its state of motion nor its internal energy state tends to change with time. A simple mechanical body is said to be in equilibrium if it experiences neither linear acceleration nor angular acceleration; **unless it is disturbed by an outside** **[force](http://global.britannica.com/science/force-physics) , it will continue in that condition indefinitely. **_

 

 

 

The alarm sounds at the most unholy time possible - four thirty in the morning – and Yebin rolls out of bed, her body still sore from last night’s practice, changing into her swimming suit in less than 10 seconds. All of this is done with her toothbrush hanging off her teeth, in mid-brush, foam threatening to spill out. Haggardly, she gropes in the dark for her oversized sweater – that will do – and grabs her cap, goggles and all the other shit she’d need for practice that still hasn’t dried from the night before.

(Her foam pull buoy is still as soggy as all hell, but it’ll be wet in another hour again.)

 

After Yebin’s holding on to everything relevant, she softly locks the room door with the first and only display of careful tact, throwing her keys into the backpack and leaving her sleeping roommate Jeon Soyeon to snore through the rest of her morning.

Soyeon could wake up at nine and call it hell. Yebin could wake up at six and call it a fucking luxury.

This was almost every morning with an exception of Sunday, but it was routine. A necessary sacrifice. It flowed almost like water.

It had everything to do with water.

 

Her hair splays in the wind as Yebin un-parks her bike and rides to the swimming complex, a good 16 blocks down.

Her coach’s disappointed voice from reviewing last week’s competition still rang in her ears. Coach Im’s face usually betrays nothing, but Yebin knew better.

It’s still dark but the waning light of the sports centre glows from the end of the winding road. It’s 4:55 am, and it’s time to wake Wonwoo’s lazy ass up.

Granted, he’ll just probably be kicking today and running laps while they train today, but she’s so sure if he never comes he definitely won’t be anywhere near the hall gym like he said he would.

Yebin knows, however that he’ll come anyway.

 

“Wake up, sloth child,” she huffs into her phone, tying her bicycle to the stands outside the complex.

He picks up, but there’s no sound.

“We are the Borg,” Yebin tries.

“Shut the fuck up… my resistance isn’t futile…”

Yebin smirks as she walks past the locker room. “Oh?”

Wonwoo’s sheets give off a crackling sound into the receiver when he rolls over, and Yebin can already envision it.

“Hey, when there’s a will there’s a way,” Wonwoo sleepily retorts.

She scoffs and mouths a “Yo” to Mingyu and Minghao when she passes by them taking off their windbreakers and bitching about some Applied Math professor. “What if I told you that Mingyu’s stripping next to lane 8 right now and he’s got bed hair?”

She can hear him sigh into the receiver. She almost laughs. She wants to.

“Fuck you, Yebin,” her phone croaks, and the call ends.

 

Later, in the midst of warming up and dicking around in the pool, waiting for Coach Im to arrive, everyone is doing some form of 400m freestyle while Minghao and Jieqiong are nowhere to be seen. Aspiring valedictorian Wen Junhui has already finished his laps and is discussing shit with Seokmin that sounds a lot like quantum physics, and Yebin swears that if not for Seokmin’s reflective goggles, he’d probably look like a confused, crying sheep.

Soonyoung tells them about some girl in Business Management that didn’t do shit for project work. He keeps looking towards the door fearfully – and rightfully, understandably so.

All of them are going to get collectively screwed the moment Coach Im Nayoung steps in.

 

Everyone’s present but Wonwoo and Eunwoo, and Yebin is now a little scared for their (quite nice) asses.

 

Suddenly, the door squeaks open. Everyone, stills, even those in mid-stroke, and looks towards the head that starting to peek through-

 

“HAHAHA did y’all think I was coach? Think again!”

Eunwoo shouts and stretches her arms, shimmying in a weird sort of way that only Hansol can appreciate.

Her Supportive Boyfriend 101 Chwe Hansol laughs and pats her on the head before disappearing, and everyone sighs in relief.

 

Soonyoung thrashes the water and yells at her to never scare them like that. The rest of them just laughs unsurely, and Eunwoo jumps right into Yebin’s lane.

“Wait… Hansol sent you here so you spent the night at his place?” Yebin wiggles her eyebrows. Eunwoo just slaps her.

Jieqiong slips into the pool along with Minghao, her face flushed and a portion of her back hair tucked sloppily into her cap. It’s the second time it’s happened, or at least, the second time Yebin’s noticed it. She’s not quite ready to ask about it though.

 

A familiar pair of footsteps descend and ascend in time - one that squeaks of new Air Jordans and another that comes down fast with an Air of its own; quiet, firm, maybe angry. No one knows.

 

Coach Im Nayoung strides in with her boyfriend, Computing Facility's TA Choi Seungcheol, glancing meaningfully at everybody before going to the side and starting down the clock. Seungcheol smiles weakly at them  - he's always been nice, soft, and absolutely none of them ever called him Mr. Choi. So when this happens, Yebin is terrified.

 

"You know I don't give pep talks," the coach starts, quirking her eyebrows just a little when she notices Wonwoo's absence. "And I'm sure that you're all not stupid to realise that most of you underperformed last week. And you know, I'm not as mad that you guys only got a two medals this round, but rather at the fact that out of the 21 events we qualified for, 18 of them failed to break your personal best."

Yebin sighs in relief at the medal part – she got 2nd for 100m breaststroke, but hides her face against the pool tile when Coach mentions about the personal best.

She didn’t break it, and she hasn’t for ages. 1:09:30 has been her stagnant ground for the past six months, and Yebin wonders if even a swimmer like her could reach a plateau that fast.

The other medal is a gold in 50m Backstroke won by none other than Jeon Wonwoo – and he isn’t even their ace. It was a fluke (he called it a fluke, she called it ridiculous willpower and under-estimation) that led to more setbacks, one of them namely, being his semi-paralysed forearm and sprained wrist.

 

As the coach drawls on, the unpleasant fact that they screwed up gloriously is rubbed in, instilled in them until all Yebin feels is dull guilt and helplessness.

Nayoung was never really good at bring up fighting spirit – but they’re not really in the position to complain.

The digital clock at the end of the pool flashes semi-luminously. 5:38. Wonwoo is late. (L8)

 

 _Speak of the devil and he shall appear_. Fluffy black locks and untied shoelaces find their way hurriedly down the back hallway and skid to a halt ten feet in front of them.

 

Yebin give him two thumbs up and mouths “great job”. Wonwoo shoots her a withering look.

 

“Yeah, and Jeon Wonwoo, I’m going to have to speak to you one-to-one and you’re going to listen,” Coach Im says sternly, and under his breath, Yebin hears Mingyu comment on how Coach Im is hot when she’s angry.

The thing is, Mingyu doesn’t really know how to whisper, and from the tiny grimace that had flashed on Wonwoo’s face, he probably heard it.

“Shut up, she has a boyfriend,”she hisses.

Soonyoung shakes his head and flicks the back strap of Mingyu’s goggles. “If he’s not in computing, Kim Mingyu won’t give a shit. Seungcheol’s too nice to do anything.”

 

 

When they’re swimming 1500m worth of Butterfly stroke as a means of purgatory – this was only part their punishment, and even Butterfly specialists Soonyoung and Eunwoo had complained – Yebin sees Wonwoo running around the 50 metre pool with what looks like 3.5 kg ankle weights. She’s not that sure, it’s what she can gauge from breaths of air and awkward turns of her head during intervals.

Later on, he’s doing one-handed push ups and then, he’s running again.

_Honestly, he didn’t deserve so much flak. He was stupid, he under-estimated his strength, he met his rival from high school and didn’t want to lose. Wonwoo is stupid but he’s injured and…_

And Yebin wants to rescue him, which is ironic because she’s in her own cycle of hell, swimming this set.

 

Wonwoo’s one arm is in a brace and the other hangs limply by his side. Training’s just ended and the sun only starts to peek out of the sky now.

“Aren’t you going to shower?” Yebin asks. He reeks of sweat. She reeks of chlorine. Same difference. “Everyone’s inside. You don’t want your daily dose of Mingyu?”

( _it’s times like this when that part of her mind tells her that she’s digging her own grave_ )

“-tired.” Wonwoo doesn’t even bother to enunciate it properly, it just sounds like a deep gust of wind but it’s Wonwoo, and Yebin probably knows this guy from inside out.

Yebin tells him to get up. Wonwoo points to his ankles soundlessly.

“You want me to take off your weights for you?”

Wonwoo pleads with his eyes, and Yebin gets down on one knee, not without fuss.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe… who’s the baby now, Jeon Wonwoo? Here I am, being the Prince Charming to your Cinderella – I’m not paid enough…”

Junhui, who’s one of those guys that can shower under 30 seconds or something, is already done and laughing at their antics. It makes Yebin wonder sometimes – how the hell can anything become clean so fast? _Did he just stand under the shower head, and “Hallelujah!” “Amen!” “It is finished!” and it’s done?_  Still, Wen Junhui is practically a superhuman, so Yebin doesn’t let her mind stray too far. She has shit to do.

 

 

They’re all gathered in some fast food restaurant located on the offskirts of college, the nine of them occupying the long table with booster seats at the end of the room. It was supposed to be a team dinner, but in this gloomy-ass mood, they’d all drink, and they’re not supposed to. _It screws up your system, no way in hell do I want to swim on the morning of my hangover._ And so, it’s a brunch.

There’s not much bonding going on – Minghao and Jieqiong share intense, passive-aggressive stares but they don’t talk to each other at all. They’re probably texting (sexting? Yebin will never know) under the table in Chinese. Eunwoo is eating and she’s on her fourth bowl of Caesar Salad – _why salad?? Eck_

Junhui is doing homework at the far end – you don’t even have to look to know he is, he always is, and Seokmin is trying to copy the answers for a tutorial two lectures ago.

Soonyoung is fiddling with his phone, and by the way Yebin’s own phone is buzzing with irrelevant notifications, he’s probably sending troops to their clan or doing something stupid in their Clash Royale clan.

It’s a game. A phone game. Yebin kind of regrets joining a clan filled with Soonyoung, Seokmin and a multitude of faceless gamer dudes from Philosophy and European Archaeology, because as much as she doesn’t want to generalise and discriminate, humanities majors make pretty lame team players in clans.

Mingyu’s doing a snapchat of himself, vlog style, imitating a Valley-girl Californian accent, which would probably make Wonwoo laugh – if he weren’t dead to the world now, snoring beside Yebin, the pen limp in his fingers and his breath tickling her elbows.

 

And even though everything is hectic as hell, with the light rays shining through the wall-to-ceiling windows and Wonwoo’s hair brushing against her right hand, Yebin thinks about the rhythm of mundanity and rhythm of Wonwoo’s even breathing – about how she’ll one day get sick of one of them, about how she’ll never get used to the other.


End file.
